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The perfect line

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51 Of The Most Beautiful Sentences In Literature

“We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about their favorite lines from literature,” Jennifer Schaffer writes. “Here are some of their most beautiful replies.”

“At the still point, there the dance is.” ~ T. S. Eliot

“We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered.” ~ Tom Stoppard, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.” ~ Langston Hughes, The Big Sea

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OK, this article was aimed at Valentine’s Day. So I’m a little late. Sue me.

The 10 Best First Dates In Literature

At Bustle, Charlotte Ahlin tells us, perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, that “books are full of inspirational love stories: Gatsby, projecting all of his material desires onto Daisy. Rhett Butler, being a total jerk, an elderly vampire, stalking an underage girl. Literary romances are always perfect and never, ever dysfunctional. And the same goes for dating in books — first dates always go smoothly, just like in real life!

For example: The Postponed Execution From One Thousand and One Nights

Scheherazade is one of the greatest female characters in history. Her husband Shahryar, the king, has a habit of marrying a new woman every day, and then killing her that night. But Scheherazade manages to postpone her execution by telling him a gripping story and ending on a cliffhanger. And she does the same thing the next night. And the next. And the next. A creepy first date, but she manages to spin it into a survival tactic, until Shahryar falls for her and stops trying to kill her so much.

The 5 Stages Of Realizing Your Lover Is Not A Book LoverPhoto Credit: Vicky Mount (flickr)

The beginning stages of dating are wonderful, she writes and adds: I love learning things about my new partner little by little and question by question. Some of my go-to questions are: Are you adventurous or practical? If you were to get a tattoo right now, what would you get, and where? And the question of all questions: Do you read?

And the stages of discovering (and accepting) that your lover does not read as much as you do.

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And finally, writing in The Guardian, Susie Steiner, author of ‘Missing, Presumed,’ offers some books to help you deal with the end of love:

Top 10 books for the broken-hearted

Some relationships ebb away, petering to their end, she writes, but there is another altogether more visceral kind – the brutal, sudden and sometimes unexpected end to love.

For this, some serious heartbreak literature is required, books that can carry us through the worst of times, offer wisdom in the dark, a voice saying you are not alone. And they touch on larger themes of grief and the inward-looking process of rebuilding oneself. They will hold your hand through the worst of it.

One example

After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell:This novel tells the story of Alice, a young woman in a coma. The story’s clever, dreamlike structure loops back into her past and the secrets held there. It has all the grip of a psychological thriller, but the writing is drenched in loss and absence. It’s the intense atmosphere of grief that stays with you.